The silence lingered long after the storm was gone.
Ash clung to Sid's hair and armor as he stood amidst the ruins of Aurenheim, a graveyard without voices. Every breath stirred a faint gray cloud, the only motion in a world that had forgotten how to move.
Even Ravh'Zereth's whisper — that ever-present, serpentine echo in his mind — had gone still.
For the first time since awakening the demon-flame, Sid was utterly, unbearably alone.
A low hum cracked through the comm-line. Lucien's voice came in, static-laced and trembling.
"Sid— Sid, do you read me?"
Sid pressed a hand to his ear, forcing the connection through interference. "I'm here."
"What's your status? Kael says the storm's faded, but we're getting impossible readings. It's like the whole region's muted."
Sid's gaze drifted to the horizon — the burned sky above the silent city.
"It's not muted. It's… gone."
Lucien hesitated. "…You mean...?"
"I mean there's nothing left to hear."
For a long time, neither spoke. Then Lucien's tone hardened, that commander's voice pushing through grief.
"Return to base. Immediately."
Sid turned away from the ruins. "If Velgrin's here, I'm not running."
Lucien's breath caught. "You think he's still..."
"I know it," Sid said softly. "He didn't unleash that storm to kill. He was… testing something."
Elsewhere —
The Hall of Ashen Light.
A cathedral deep beneath the shattered citadel pulsed with dim luminescence. Its walls were carved from crystallized silence — light that refused to shine, flame that refused to burn.
Velgrin stood at its center, calm as a god sculptor before an unfinished statue.
Before him knelt a mortal soldier — one of the surviving scouts from the Organization, trembling, eyes hollow with terror.
Velgrin raised a hand. White flame rippled across his palm, forming a circle of runes — each etched with an impossible symbol that devoured meaning itself.
"Do you fear being forgotten?" Velgrin asked gently.
The soldier shook, unable to speak.
"I will give you peace, then," Velgrin whispered. "The peace of not needing to exist."
The flame touched the soldier's chest — and the man's body went still.
The light branded him — a mark of eight interlocking rings, burning faintly with translucent fire.
Then, slowly, his eyes turned white. His breathing stopped. But he did not fall.
He stood, hollow and silent, awaiting command.
Velgrin smiled faintly.
"The Eighth Brand is complete."
He stepped back, watching the branded warrior — his first vessel of silence.
"You are my echo. Go now. Seek the chained one."
The branded warrior turned toward the ruins — soundless, flawless, empty.
Hours later.
The Edge of Aurenheim.
Sid trudged through ash and fractured glass. Each step stirred faint afterimages of memory — people frozen mid-laugh, mid-breath, mid-life. His flames flickered weakly, chains clinking faintly against his wrist.
"You cannot chain silence…"
Velgrin's words echoed in his mind, gnawing at him.
Was silence the true end of chaos? Or simply another form of control?
He didn't get to think long.
The air in front of him shimmered — then split apart. From within the rift stepped the branded warrior, pale and expressionless, the Eighth Brand glowing in his chest.
Sid froze, instinct screaming. The brand pulsed — and suddenly, all sound vanished again. The world fell mute.
He raised his sword, shouting — but his own voice didn't exist.
The warrior lunged forward, a blur of movement.
Their blades met — no clash, no spark. Just the pressure of power colliding in total silence.
Sid's flames roared, black and crimson intertwining violently. His chains reacted to the Brand's presence, seething against his skin. The branded warrior fought with impossible precision, every motion calculated — not by thought, but by will not his own.
Velgrin's whisper rode the air between strikes:
"See, Sid? This is what freedom without noise looks like — obedience born from purity."
Sid's fury broke through the stillness.
He pushed back, swinging his blade in a wide arc — black fire erupting. The warrior stumbled, half his armor melting away, revealing the glowing symbol carved into his heart.
Sid caught a glimpse — the Eight Rings spinning faintly, like a halo inverted into flesh.
He thrust his sword forward — piercing the brand.
Light exploded.
The silence shattered.
A scream — impossibly loud — tore through reality itself.
The branded warrior fell, dissolving into dust.
For a moment, Sid thought it was over.
Then the dust spoke.
Not with words — but with Velgrin's voice.
"You cannot chain fire."
The ash swirled around him, forming a phantom image — Velgrin's face, serene and knowing.
"Every chain you break births another form of me. You've slain my echo, not my will."
Sid staggered back, eyes wide. "What are you..."
"The Eighth Brand is a mark of silence upon identity," Velgrin said calmly. "Each time one dies, their memory is devoured — and their will returns to me. You are fighting inevitability, Sid. You are fighting silence itself."
Sid's chains cracked, black light spilling from the fractures.
His vision blurred. Pain pulsed behind his eyes.
Ravh'Zereth's voice returned, faint, strained:
"Careful, vessel… that power bends memory. He is branding reality itself."
Sid fell to one knee, breathing hard. "He's trying to erase the world— one person at a time."
The phantom faded, whispering its final words before vanishing:
"No. I'm simply ending the noise."
Back at Base.
Lucien slammed his fists against the terminal. "He branded one of our own, Sid! That signal came from one of our units — before it vanished from existence."
Kael paced behind him, muttering curses. "We need counter-seals. Something that prevents identity erasure."
Yara, now freed but pale, stood silently in the corner. Her mark pulsed faintly. "You can't counter silence. You can only break it… or surrender to it."
Sid's voice came through the comms, strained but steady. "Then we'll break it."
Lucien frowned. "Sid, your chains are fracturing. You can't keep forcing the daemon-flame without—"
"I don't care," Sid interrupted. "If he's rewriting existence, then I'll burn the page before he finishes."
Kael turned toward the screen, eyes wide. "Sid, if you lose control—"
"Then at least I'll still be loud enough to be remembered."
The connection cut.
Far away, Sid stood at the edge of a blackened plain, the ashes of Aurenheim swirling around him. He looked at his cracked chains, glowing faintly with black-red light.
He remembered the branded warrior's dying scream — and the words Velgrin left him with.
"You cannot chain fire."
He whispered to himself, voice trembling between defiance and despair:
"Then maybe it's time fire learned to chain itself."
His chains pulsed — once, violently — as if answering him.